metamodernISM
The death of Modernism triggered by the horrors of World War Two led to punk, industrial music and postmodernism.
Postmodernist ironic deconstruction took everything to pieces, leaving nothing, just nihilism.
Metamodernism is a return to meaning, albeit one that is knowingly, subjectively created. It therefore oscillates freely between irony and sincerity in an inclusive way where everyone is in on the joke. Fictional worlds that exist in our minds can be simultaneously as real as “consensus reality”, whilst also being made up stories.
“We are meaning seeking creatures in a world with no meaning. We have to make our own meaning.” – Decommissioned Forests (Get Out)
In 1977 it was shocking when The Sex Pistols said, “no future.”
Now, in 2024 the most shocking thing to say is, “yes future.”
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Further reading:
Linda Ceriello and Greg Dember’s:
A brief introduction to metamodernism by Luke Turner: https://www.metamodernism.com/2015/01/12/metamodernism-a-brief-introduction/
Metamodernist Manifesto by Luke Turner: http://www.metamodernism.org/
Wikipedia:
“Since Narcissus looked in the pond, we’ve all been in trouble.” – History Of Guns, The Mirror Pond
“The one place Gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity.” – Alan Moore (From Hell)
“Where do things go when we forget them?” – Charlie Kaufman (Antkind)
definition (Generated by ai)
What is real?
Many Worlds theory
History Of Guns create worlds which they claim to be no less real or valid than the currently shared spacetime elements which make up consensus reality.
In an increasingly nonsensical post-truth meaningless world, one method of survival is to create your own world. Your own truth. Your own meaning. One that it worth living for, that no one can take away from you.
- Imagine an idealised version of yourself and journey towards it.
- Imagine an idealised version of society and journey towards it.
- Imagine an idealised version of reality and journey towards it.
- Live by example. Be the change you want to see.
- Find and reject all the unhelpful poison other people put in your head.
- If visited by the Arcadians, listen to what they have to say.
“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped.”
“Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage…. The postmodern founders’ patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years.”– David Foster Wallace